BRAXIT

1. Intro. UK has voted to leave the European Union. It is scheduled to depart at 11pm UK time
on Friday 29 March, 2019. Talks have been taking place on three aspects of how Brexit will work -
focusing on how much the UK owes the EU, what happens to the Northern Ireland border and what
happens to UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU and EU citizens living in the UK. The UK wants to
talk about future trade relations - and a plan for a two year "transition" period to smooth the way to
post-Brexit relations. But the EU said they would not talk about the future until enough progress has
been made on the other issues. After months of negotiations the two sides have just reached
agreement on those three issues, with a summit of EU leaders on 14-15 December now set to give
the go-ahead for talks to begin on what sort of relationship the UK and the EU will have after Brexit.
2. Meaning of Brexit. It is a word that has become used as a shorthand way of saying the UK
leaving the EU - merging the words Britain and exit to get Brexit, in the same way as a possible
Greek exit from the euro was dubbed Grexit in the past.
3. Why is Britain leaving the European Union A referendum - a vote in which everyone (or
nearly everyone) of voting age can take part - was held on Thursday 23 June, 2016, to decide
whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by 51.9% to 48.1%.
The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting.
4. What was the breakdown across the UK. England voted for Brexit, by 53.4% to 46.6%.
Wales also voted for Brexit, with Leave getting 52.5% of the vote and Remain 47.5%. Scotland
and Northern Ireland both backed staying in the EU. Scotland backed Remain by 62% to 38%,
while 55.8% in Northern Ireland voted Remain and 44.2% Leave.
5. What changed in government after the referendum. Britain got a new Prime Minister -
Theresa May. The former home secretary took over from David Cameron, who announced he
was resigning on the day he lost the referendum. Like Mr Cameron, Mrs May was against
Britain leaving the EU but she played only a very low-key role in the campaign and was never
seen as much of an enthusiast for the EU. She became PM without facing a full Conservative
leadership contest after her key rivals from what had been the Leave side pulled out.
6. Where does Theresa May stand on Brexit. Theresa May was against Brexit during the
referendum campaign but is now in favour of it because she says it is what the British people
want. Her key message has been that "Brexit means Brexit" and she triggered the two year
process of leaving the EU on 29 March, 2017. She set out her negotiating goals in a letter to
the EU council president Donald Tusk. She outlined her plans for a transition period after
Brexit in a big speech in Florence, Italy.
7. How did the snap election change things Theresa May surprised almost everyone after
the 2017 Easter Bank Holiday by calling an election for 8 June (it had been due in 2020). She
said she wanted to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations with European leaders. She said
Labor, the SNP and other opposition parties - and members of the House of Lords - would try
to block and frustrate her strategy. However, Mrs May did not increase her party's seats in the
Commons and she ended up weakened, having to rely on support from the 10 MPs from
Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party.
8. Brexit negotiations. They finally, officially, started a year after the referendum, on 19
June, 2017. Here's a picture from that first session. UK and EU negotiating teams meet face-to-
face for one week each month, with a few extra sessions also thrown in ahead of EU summits.
Their first tasks have been trying to get an agreement on the rights of UK and EU expat citizens
after Brexit, reaching a figure for the amount of money the UK will need to pay on leaving, the
so-called "divorce bill", and what happens to the Northern Ireland border. Agreement on these
issues was reached on 8 December
9. What is Article 50. Article 50 is a plan for any country that wishes to exit the EU. It was
created as part of the Treaty of Lisbon - an agreement signed up to by all EU states which
became law in 2009. Before that treaty, there was no formal mechanism for a country to leave
the EU.
10. What is the Labour Party's position on Brexit. Labour's position on Brexit was tweaked
in mid-August, when the shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, announced that the party
now wanted to keep the UK in the single market and a customs union during a transition that
could last for up to four years.Labour would also accept free movement of people, payments
into the EU budget and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice during the transition.
This is a considerably "softer" version of Brexit than the one advocated by the government, but
there are still divisions within the party about whether the UK should try to stay in the single
market in the longer term.
11. What do 'soft' and 'hard' Brexit mean. These terms are used during debate on the terms of
the UK's departure from the EU. There is no strict definition of either, but they are used to refer
to the closeness of the UK's relationship with the EU post-Brexit.So at one extreme, "hard"
Brexit could involve the UK refusing to compromise on issues like the free movement of people
even if meant leaving the single market. At the other end of the scale, a "soft" Brexit might
follow a similar path to Norway, which is a member of the single market and has to accept the
free movement of people as a result of that.